Occasional musings on "life, the universe, and everything" from a fiber junkie.

March 26, 2008

Spring fever

Don't you just hate it when your internal scheduler gets completely out of whack? Now that the skies are light
later in the evenings, I'm finding that I stay up much later than I normally would, thus making it harder and harder to roll
out when the alarm goes off at 6AM. Gloomy gray skies and the sound of rain hitting the windows this morning made
me want to just pull the quilt back over my head and go back to sleep. Alas, playing hookey from w*rk (narsty
4-letter word that it is) isn't really an option right now, and won't be until May 2nd, when the ceremonial "Unsetting of
the Alarm" can signal the start of my 3-week vacation.

Between now and then, in the office, "da boyz" and I will be migrating staff workstations from our existing network structure
to the new one, a process fraught with anguish for our users. It consistently amazes me how some of them, especially
those who would like others to believe that they are "technology hotshots" can be so fearful of change. Oh, the whining
and complaining we're hearing! Suck it up, people, change happens, expecially when you're dealing with technology.
Without change you can't have growth, and without growth you become stagnant.

The Celtic Icon cardi has progressed somewhat - all the main pieces are done, waiting for me to block them. Now
all that remains is some preliminary assembly, knitting the sides of the hood, sewing remaining seams, and finding the right
zipper. Aside from that, not much knitting has gotten done, as I seem to have been bitten by the "spring
cleaning" and "decluttering" bugs. Last weekend was spent toting bags and bags of unnecessary junk out of my apartment,
resulting in serious screaming from my poor arthritic body. Good thing I have ample supplies of pain meds.

It feels really good to have some of that clutter removed from my living space - moving forward on my plan to purge possessions
until I could (if necessary) downsize to a smaller apartment. While my goal has been to finish the purge before
I am ready to retire*, it feels so good to see stuff moving out of the apartment instead of in that it just
might get done this calendar year.

My "knit from the stash" plan for 2008 has gone well thus far, with no new yarns purchased since January first.
With any luck, I'll be able to continue not buying for a bit longer, though there is a small splurge planned for the
SeaSocks cruise. While we're in Alaska, I plan to try to get my hands on some qiviut, and possibly some locally
produced hand-dyed yarns. As I did with last year's cruise shopping, I'll be looking for things that aren't readily
available here in town (or online).

Now, if only the Canada geese flying overhead would figure out which way is north ... this morning, one group was headed
southwest, while another v-formation passed them headed east. Sounds like I'm not the only one who's having
trouble with "which way is up?"

. . . is mainly that it refuses to go away! It feels as if Spring will never get here, with its fresh green
leaves on the trees and balmy breezes. Still, the hours of daylight are lengthening gradually, and some of the trees
look as if they're trying hard to produce buds. Early this morning, a flock of Canada geese could be heard honking overhead
on their annual migration northward. These hopeful signs are being contradicted by the enormous snowflakes drifting
through the sky and the viciously biting wind, but Spring will arrive eventually.

With Spring, or more accurately, with the arrival of May comes the long-anticipated SeaSocks cruise to Alaska.
Rumor has it that there will be over 150 of us knitting all over Celebrity Cruise Lines' ship Infinity.
Many of my fellow participants were on the inaugural cruise last year, and it will be great fun to get together with them
again. I've been poking around Celebrity's web site, studying the deck plans of the ship, figuring out where the best
places will be to lurk with my knitting, the better to disconcert the unwary.

Since the trip is only eight weeks away, it's time to begin pondering that very important question: what knitting
should I take? There needs to be enough that I won't run out of project before the trip is over, but not so much that
I'm carting around too much luggage. One project must be socks, of course, just because it's the SeaSocks
cruise. Also, socks are a nicely portable project, in spite of all the DPNs required. (Yes, I'm old-fashioned
and use doublepoints. Deal with it.)

Last year, I took a lace project as my secondary knitting, and will most likely do that again this year. Question
is, which lace project? Will it be the Faroese shawl that was begun at the KR retreat? Will I
succumb to the glories of Mmario's "Artemis" pattern? Will I pack the "Ice Queen" pattern from Knitty, just in case
some qiviut leaps into my hands in Alaska? Will Granny Weatherwax demand her turn on the needles? Or will some
other pattern leap out at me between now and then, taking over my attention?

Decisions, decisions . . .

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, w*rk continues to eat up way too much of my knitting time, and the snow keeps falling.
Spring. Will. Come.

This silly "w*rking for a living" thing is getting out of hand. It's bad enough that they expect me to be here
Monday through Friday, but here we all are on a Sunday, too, working on migrating all the organization's data from one file
server to another and reattaching permissions so that everyone can get at the pieces they need and can't get at the rest.
Not difficult, just tedious, and dramatically cutting into my knitting time.

Speaking of knitting, The Albatross is growing, albeit slowly, since the invocation of the Two Row Rule. The Celtic
Icon cardi and the Faroese shawl are also inching their way toward completion. The bright red and yellow Meilenweit
socks are finished, and a new pair has been cast on in a wool / alpaca blend from the KR Retreat Marketplace. The first
sock of this pair is past its gusset, cruising toe-ward, in the Baby Cable Rib from Sensational Knitted Socks.
This tends to be a standard "go-to" pattern for me, since it's already firmly lodged in my alleged brain, nearly mindless
(until I forget it's a cable-twist row and have to tink, cursing all the way) and looking more complex than it really is.

It's finally March, so there is some hope that the infernal white stuff will stop falling from the sky fairly soon.
The departure of dismal February means that the SeaSocks cruise is getting closer, with its promise of some serious knitting
time, laughter and relaxation. This will be my first visit to Alaska, something I've wanted to do for a long time.
The Infernal DigiCam has been informed that if it becomes obstructive, it could end up being tossed overboard; with
any luck, it'll condescend to cooperate and snap some photos of the Inside Passage and the Hubbard Glacier.

Traveling with a large crowd of knitters gives one many opportunities for people-watching; I especially enjoy the variety
of facial expressions observed on non-knitters who have just rounded a corner to find themselves facing fifty or more people
with knitting in their hands. Yes, I am easily amused. Why do you ask?

Aha, "da boyz" have just informed me that phase one of the migration is done, so I must toddle off to supervise my part
of the process. More later (or not).